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Last year while on a vacation, I stopped at a store that sells old video games and imported Japanese goods. Japanese manga, candy, vending machine toys, figures, etc. I picked up a goofy Japanese-to-English phrasebook on a whim.

To give you an idea of the kinds of phrases it translates, one of them is, "Bob is pinching his nipples to signify his disagreement," with an illustration of a man in a New York Yankees hat pinching his nipples. I only just recently gave it another glance and found one that some folks interested in learning Japanese might be interested in jotting down:

Not to clutter with a barrage of XI topics, but since the Event topic seems to be filling up with after-event glow of excitement, I thought I'd make a topic exclusively for talking about first impressions of what we saw/read so we can get our opinions more focused. Here are some of my own:

PS4 Version:

+ Looks nice

+ Jumping!?!?!?!

+ Monsters appear on the overworld?!?!?!?!

+ Probably open world

+ Strong possibility for release

- Clearly has a long way to go in terms of development

3DS Version:

+ I like what they did with both screens

+ Clearly farther in development

+ Honestly think we're more likely to get this version

- Graphics are meh

...Honestly, I poked away for a sec to do something else and might have missed some things.

Sort of late but I thought I'd let things simmer a bit for people before they decide what they thought of E3. What was an E3 highlight for you? What games are you looking forward to? What were your overall impressions? No complaining about a lack of Dragon Quest please unless you're talking about your interest or lack-there-of for what we saw for Dragon Quest Heroes.

I don't own either an Xbox One or PS4 (but I'm considering, depends on how Black Friday half a year from now shapes up) so I mostly only paid attention to Nintendo, who, as everyone knows, had a disappointing showing. Personally, I think Nintendo had the wrong strategy. The other companies showed what would be coming potentially as far into the future as 2018, whereas Nintendo kept it's focus narrowed to the end of 2015 to Q1/Q2 2016. On top of that, they made the mistake of not packaging their Smash and EarthBound announcements into their E3 video to beef it up some more.

Games I'm looking forward to:

Fire Emblem Fates - It's Pokémon approach to splitting it up into 2 games is controversial but they've stated that each game has the same amount of content as Awakening and branches off sharply at Chapter 6 (I think Awakening had 24 chapters?) so I'm on board. Gameplay looks the same as Awakening and the story looks engaging.

Genei Ibun Roku #FE - Oy. That title. And let's be real, it's Persona x Fire Emblem. From what I've read the Fire Emblem cast almost come off as Personas, as the characters apparently merge with Mirages, who are Fire Emblem characters. The J-Pop song playing in the new trailer was incredibly off-putting but not enough to deter me from it, though the fact that a dance music record label will be producing the music is frightening. Not particularly pumped about the "Japanese idol group" vibe I'm getting. Good to see Nintendo is working on giving us plenty of boob physics games this gen. Gameplay in the Treehouse video looked good.

Star Fox Zero - I'm like the only person who likes the look of the Gyro controls in this game so this is up my alley. I hope it plays a bit faster then what we saw.

Fatal Frame V - It wasn't shown in their video but they posted an E3 trailer so it technically counts. They clearly wanted to keep their presentation all-ages. Very pretty, very spooky, very boob physics. It's my understanding that Dead or Alive's Ayane is in this game, and the developers apparently spent an excessive amount of time working on the "wobble of her chest."

Xenoblade Chronicles X - I've heard negative things about it, but I'm still interested in it. Backgrounds are total scenery porn. Gameplay looks adequate. I feel like I'd need to actually play it to make a determination on it. 12/4 release date means I know what I'm asking for on my birthday a week and a half later.

Honorable mention goes to the only non-Nintendo game on my list: Persona 5, which, despite being what was on the E3 badges, did not actually appear at E3, other then a slightly more English version of the Japanese trailer, an update to the website, and the confirmation that it will come out in 2015 and on the PS3.